The Sunday Paper #568

Twenty-nine years ago this morning, my parents picked me up at the cooperative house I lived in and drove me to Grace Church in Brooklyn Heights, where Ted and I got married. We were featured in the New York Times Vows section because Ted’s office mate at the New Yorker really wanted that to happen. I’m not sure why, but it was fun to be featured, and we got written up again 7 years later, when the editor told us “you wouldn’t believe how many couples I called before I found one that was still together.” And just a couple of months ago, Ted was wondering about Anne Mortimer-Maddox (aka Dusty), his office mate. Sadly, we learned that she passed away last November. From her obituary: “Her great career joy was as a longtime member and eventual doyenne of the fact checking department at the New Yorker Magazine, on 43rd Street in Manhattan. She was beloved at the magazine, and many staff there remember her taking an interest and shepherding them through their early days.”

I dug out our wedding file (remember file folders?) and went down memory lane. Here you see the light green prototype for our wedding invitation (a one-sheet mailer with a tear-off response card that Ted and I made at Dieu Donné Papermill, where I was working at the time), our engagement announcement, the label for our home brewed wedding mead, and a drawing of a grapevine knot that appeared in the program – with a verse from Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, expanding on the idea of two being better than one. Our wedding rings are two bands woven together, like the grapevine knot.

Here’s to twenty-nine more years!

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This looks like a fun opportunity: Free Sketching Memories and Creativity Memoir Classes for Paper Lovers, Bookbinders, and Artisans (online).

Your handmade books deserve more than blank pages. In these two free live online classes — Sketching & Drawing Memories and an introduction to Creativity Memoir — you’ll learn how to bring your work to life with personal stories, sketches, and images. Perfect for paper lovers, bookbinders, painters, fiber artists, photographers, and creatives of all kinds, you’ll discover how to create a one-of-a-kind illustrated book or even self-publish and replicate your work. Guided by best-selling author and book arts mentor Nicole White, you’ll leave inspired, connected, and ready to preserve your stories and artistries for generations to come. Join a free class on Friday, August 22nd at 12 PM MST, Saturday, August 23rd at 10 AM MST, or Saturday, August 30th at 10 AM MST. Classes are live and online. We keep them small, so save your spot now.

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I’m honored to be exhibiting work alongside Sara Garden Armstrong and Nancy Cohen at the Robert C. Williams Museum of Papermaking in Atlanta this fall. All three of us will be in Atlanta for the opening reception – please come if you’re in the area! We’d love to meet with interested groups/students in the galleries, and I’m also teaching a workshop at the museum – details below.

• Reception: Thursday, September 4, 2025, 4-7pm
• The artists will be in the gallery on Friday, September 5th by appointment. Please reach out if you’d like to meet up or bring a group to tour the exhibition.
• Workshop: Saturday, September 6, 2025. Details here.
• Attend our Virtual Artist Talk on October 18th. Register here.

From the back of the postcard:

What does it mean for an artist to spend years exploring a material? How deep an understanding and visual vocabulary can be created with time and extensive investigation? The three artists featured in the inaugural triennial series, Legacies in Paper, have spent a lifetime exploring the boundless qualities of handmade paper. The Paper Museum celebrates the endless and vast possibilities of hand papermaking and the dedication to the creation of meaningful art by Nancy Cohen, Sara Garden Armstrong, & Helen Hiebert.

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We moved to Portland two years after getting married, and shortly after that I met Barb Tetenbaum, who is a dear friend, and an artist working in letterpress and artist’s books. Throughout her career, she has nurtured students at the Oregon College of Art & Craft (OCAC) and Reed College. If you’re in the area, don’t miss her exhibition which opens tomorrow at Reed College.

Forward Fold is the first large-scale exhibition of Barb Tetenbaum’s artist books held in Reed College’s Special Collections. Spanning 1989 to the present, the work presents a multitude of physical forms: maps, scrolls, accordion-folded books, traditional codices, and other innovative forms. These works offer a new understanding of the book through experimental combinations of text, image, structure and materials.

The exhibition will also contain over 130 artist books and objects created by Tetenbaum’s students from both OCAC and Reed College, illuminating the strong connection between the questions the artist asks as part of her studio practice and the assignments she has created for her students over the past three decades.

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Check out the Reusable Book Covers members created in The Paper Year last month (watch the video). The range of approaches – from size to shape to papers and surface design (note the woven cover pictured below), not to mention stitching – was amazing. This is a warm and welcoming group of creatives. Registration will be open again October 1-10. Hold your spot.

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